Chapter Eight #3
I scoff, the scars across my chest beginning to burn.
I dig the heel of my hand against them, trying to push the pain away, but it never truly ebbs.
It comes and it goes, ancient wounds carved with an ancient tool.
The only weapon that’s ever been able to leave a mark, intended to serve as an eternal reminder.
“It has to do with those, doesn’t it?” Darcy lightly touches the edge of a scar, right at the hollow of my throat. “These marks. They’re the reason you don’t trust me.”
I push her hand away. “Or maybe it’s because you thought batting your eyes and pouting your lip would get you somewhere.”
If I hate her for her seduction, then I don’t have to hate that I fell for it. Because I folded for her like a wet paper bag, and all of it was a lie.
I’m angry with her, yes. But I’m angry with myself, too.
Her eyes cut to mine. “I’ve told you. That wasn’t a trick.”
“Felt like one.”
I press my palm to the wall at her side and lean closer. Her head tips back, holding my eyes, imperious. A queen on her fucking throne.
“I know what it feels like when intentions are true, and when someone is shaping themselves to be exactly what they think I want.”
Her eyes flare, and I swallow hard, trying not to dwell on the fact that I’ve just admitted she is exactly what I want.
“You say you’re here for redemption, but I think you’re full of shit,” I continue. “I think you’re selfish and cruel, and there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to claim the life you’ve been assigned.”
My words land like stones and I watch as she sucks in a sharp breath. “Wow,” she whispers. “Tell me how you really feel.”
I expect a comeback. A sharp barb flung in my direction. But she stays still and quiet, staring at some fixed point down the hallway. Her nose wrinkles with a soft sound.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says. She turns back to me and a tear slips from the corner of her eye. “Maybe I am cruel. Maybe that’s what I was made for.”
I hold myself perfectly still. Waiting. Watching.
“But I had no choice in this,” she whispers. “Just as you had no choice in what you became.”
That first night, she asked if I ever wanted something different for myself and it was like the slip of a knife beneath my ribs. I’ve felt that blade twist every day since, carving up my insides and leaving me gasping for breath.
I’m a good man. I’m a good Guardian for the department.
I take pride in my job. There’s nothing more important than keeping the mortals safe.
But there are times—in the darkest corners of night and in the whispery stillness of morning—there are times when I wonder what might happen if I laid down my sword.
If I stopped fighting so damn hard. If I decided to finally rest.
Darcy walked into my bar, kissed me stupid, and made me want to be selfish.
I fucking hate it.
I don’t want anything different. I like what I do. I haven’t been tempted by anything in thousands of years, but suddenly, I’m tempted by her. Sad eyes and a cherry-red mouth. Her fingers scratching through my hair and her smiles handed over like secrets.
I don’t want it, so I do what anyone would do when backed into a corner. I lash out.
“That’s right. We don’t pick what we become. We are simply assigned to the office that suits us best.” I lean closer, my nose almost grazing her forehead. “And you, Darcy, seem to be well suited to the end of beautiful things.”
She flinches, the blow landing exactly as I intended. I’m still looking at her face, so I don’t miss it when her bottom lip starts to tremble. She catches it between her teeth, but there’s nothing she can do about the second tear that chases the first. Or the third. Or the fourth.
Each one feels like a crack splintering through my middle. An awful, impossible weight.
This isn’t who you are, a voice whispers. This isn’t how you treat people.
Darcy brushes her palm against her cheek, and I watch as she desperately tries to rebuild her bravado.
“Yeah, you might be onto something,” she agrees quietly, and that makes me feel worse. How easy it was to break her apart. How quickly she agreed.
She looks at me, tears on her cheeks and her eyes blown wide. Like this, she looks impossibly young. Almost halfway human. “I guess I’m not the only one who knows how to be cruel, huh?”
The cracks spread. I’m the worst version of myself around Darcy, and I don’t know how to stop.
“Darcy,” I start to say. “That was—” Uncalled for, an embellishment, my own frustrations leaking out of me like a goddamned sink. I could pick any of them and it would be the truth.
Luckily, I’m spared from choosing. We’re interrupted by the creak of the bathroom door, a familiar silhouette stepping into the hall-way.
Nate glances briefly in our direction, then does a double take when he sees how close we’re standing.
My forearm is still braced on the wall by Darcy’s head. Her feet are stacked between mine.
A grin appears on his face, his eyes practically twinkling in delight.
“Well, well, well,” he singsongs. He beams at the both of us. “Doesn’t this look cozy.”